Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/370

348 348 HISTORY OF THE when CEdipus has allowed himself to be calmed by his queen, and believes that the news he has received of the death of his parents in Corinth has freed him from all fear of having committed the horrible crimes denounced by the oracle : it is, however, by the narrative of this same messenger, with regard to his discovery on Cithseron, that he is suddenly torn from this state of security, and from that moment, though Jocasta sees at one glance the whole connexion of their horrible fate, he cannot rest or be quiet until he has become fully convinced of his parricidal act, and of his incestuous connexion with his mother. He accordingly inflicts punishment on himself, which is the more terrible, the more confident he was before that he was good and blameless in the eyes of god and man. " O ye generations of mortals, how unworthy of the name of life I must reckon your existence:" so begins the last stasimon of the chorus, which in this tragedy, as in all those of So- phocles, performs the duty which Aristotle prescribes as its proper voca- tion ; it gives indication of a humane sympathy, which, although not based upon such deep views as to solve all the knotty points in the action, is guided by such a train of thought as to bring back the violent emotions and the shocks of passion to a certain measure of tranquil con- templation. The chorus of Sophocles, therefore, when in its songs it meddles with the action of the piece, often appears weak, vacillating, and even blinded to the truth : when, on the contrary, it collects its dif- ferent feelings into a general contemplation of the laws of our being, it peals forth the sublimest hymns, such as that beautiful stasimon, which, after Jocasta's impious speeches, recommends a fear of the gods, and a regard for those ordinances which had their birth in heaven, which the mortal nature of man has not brought forth, and which will never be plunged by oblivion into the sleep of death.* § 9. In the Ajax of Sophocles the extraordinary power of the poet is shown in the production of a character, which, though entirely pecu- liar, and like nothing but itself, is nevertheless a general picture of humanity, applicable to every individual case. Sophocles' Ajax, like Homer's, is from first to last a brave and noble character, always ready to exert his unwearying heroism for the benefit of his people. He is a man who relies on himself, and can depend upon his own firmness in every case that occurs. But in the full consciousness of his indomi- table courage, he has forgotten that there is a higher power on which man is dependent, even for that which he considers most steadfast and most his own, the practical part of his character. This is the more deeply-rooted guilt of Ajax, which is shown at the very beginning of the play; but it does not appear in its full compass till afterwards, in the prophecies communicated to Teucer by Calchas, where Ajax's
 * King GLdip. v. 863: il poi %mtin tpigovn.